Primorsk, two records
Russia's own port statistics against public ship tracking, month by month. The Baltic's oil did not fall in 2025. It left the record.
Two independent records describe oil loadings at Russia's Baltic ports. The Association of Commercial Sea Ports reports what the stevedores handled, port by port, in cumulative monthly releases. IMF PortWatch estimates what tankers carried away from what their transponders broadcast. For eleven months of 2025 the two agree closely. From December they part, and by February 2026 the transponder record sees about a seventh of what the port reports. I set the two side by side because the PortWatch series has been read, by me among others, as the year Russia's Baltic exports finally broke. The official record says they did not. What broke was the view.
The official record
The association's full-year figures, as carried by Kommersant on 30 January 2026, put crude through all Russian ports at 274.9 million tonnes in 2025, up 2.8% on 2024. Products fell 7.7%, to 121.1 million tonnes, and the Russian trade press tied the fall to Moscow's own export bans after the refinery strikes. Primorsk, the largest Baltic oil terminal, handled 63.9 million tonnes, up 5.2%. Ust-Luga handled 130.5 million tonnes of all cargo, down 3.4%.
| Million tonnes | 2024 | 2025 | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Crude, all Russian ports | 267.5 | 274.9 | +2.8% |
| Products, all Russian ports | 131.1 | 121.1 | -7.7% |
| LNG, all Russian ports | 36.3 | 37.2 | +2.5% |
| Baltic basin, liquid cargo | 144.5 | -3.2% | |
| Ust-Luga, all cargo | 130.5 | -3.4% | |
| Primorsk, all cargo | 63.9 | +5.2% | |
| Sabetta, all cargo | 29.1 | -0.4% |
The first quarter of 2026, from the 14 April release, continues the line. Primorsk loaded 11.3 million tonnes of crude, up 2.1% on a year earlier, and 4.9 million tonnes of products, up 7.2%. Ust-Luga's crude rose 5.7% and its products fell 12.3%. Across the Baltic basin, crude was up about 4% and products down 7.5%.
The transponder record
PortWatch counts tanker calls and estimates the tonnes they carried. For the same terminals and periods it shows something else entirely.
| Terminal and period | Tanker calls | Estimated exports, Mt | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ust-Luga, 2024 to 2025 | 1,495 to 919 | 54.2 to 30.1 | -44% |
| Primorsk, 2024 to 2025 | 983 to 930 | 53.2 to 50.7 | -5% |
| Ust-Luga, Q1 2025 to Q1 2026 | 265 to 127 | 6.9 to 4.4 | -36% |
| Primorsk, Q1 2025 to Q1 2026 | 264 to 90 | 13.4 to 4.5 | -67% |
Divide one by the other and the discrepancy has a shape. In the first quarter of 2025 PortWatch's estimate for Primorsk was 86% of the port's reported crude and products. A year later it was 28%. At Ust-Luga the share went from 46% to 31%. Over the full year, Primorsk's tracked share was 88% in 2024 and 79% in 2025, so the break is recent and steep.
Month by month
The association's cumulative releases can be differenced into months, with the caveat that a revision in one release moves a single month, and that from May 2026 the releases stopped reporting by cargo type and port, so the series ends in April.
The official line holds between 4.8 and 6.3 million tonnes through the whole period. The tracked line runs beneath it at 73% to 94% of the official figure every month from January to November 2025, then falls away: 59% in December, 45% in January 2026, and 15%, 15% and 14% in February, March and April. March 2026 looks high against the reported suspensions of Baltic loadings after the drone strikes, and I note it rather than adjust it.
| Month | Official, Mt | PortWatch, Mt | Visible |
|---|---|---|---|
| Jan 2025 | 6.1 | 5.0 | 82% |
| Feb 2025 | 5.0 | 3.7 | 74% |
| Mar 2025 | 5.3 | 4.6 | 87% |
| Apr 2025 | 4.9 | 3.9 | 80% |
| May 2025 | 4.9 | 4.6 | 94% |
| Jun 2025 | 5.0 | 4.0 | 80% |
| Jul 2025 | 4.8 | 3.5 | 73% |
| Aug 2025 | 5.5 | 4.5 | 81% |
| Sep 2025 | 5.7 | 4.8 | 85% |
| Oct 2025 | 5.4 | 4.5 | 83% |
| Nov 2025 | 5.1 | 3.8 | 74% |
| Dec 2025 | 6.2 | 3.7 | 59% |
| Jan 2026 | 6.3 | 2.9 | 45% |
| Feb 2026 | 4.9 | 0.8 | 15% |
| Mar 2026 | 5.8 | 0.9 | 15% |
| Apr 2026 | 6.2 | 0.9 | 14% |
Reading the two together
The official statistics show no fall in Baltic crude in 2025 or in the first quarter of 2026. The fall they do show is in products, exactly where Moscow had a reason to admit one, after its own export bans. A series written to flatter would not volunteer that.
The PortWatch fall is therefore mostly a fall in what AIS can see, not in what left the port. The candidates are the ones the sanctions literature already names: tankers transmitting less or spoofing position after the January 2025 United States designations, ship-to-ship transfers outside the port geofence, and vessels that PortWatch's classifier no longer counts as tankers. Which of the three carries most of the gap is the next question, and it needs a second AIS source.
Sabetta, the Arctic LNG terminal, is the control. It agrees in both records, flat in each, so the Arctic side of the earlier contrast stands. The Baltic side does not, as a statement about exports.
Everything written about sanctions working at sea from transponder data is measuring the ships that stayed on the record.
What this changes is the reading of a widely quoted count. Tanker calls at Ust-Luga did fall from 1,495 in 2024 to 919 in 2025; the count is true and the inference that exports fell is not. Any event study of 2024 to 2026 built on calls loses visibility over the same period and has to say so. And an assessment of enforcement at sea that rests on the public transponder record is, from early 2026, an assessment of the minority of the fleet still broadcasting.
Limits
The association is one source, reporting stevedore data. The first-quarter 2025 bases for the quarterly shares are back-computed from the 2026 levels and the reported growth rates. The monthly series is a difference of cumulative releases and ends in April 2026 because the association stopped publishing by port. The next steps are a second AIS provider for the same months and the association's basin figures once they resume.
Sources
- Грузооборот морских портов России, monthly releases January 2025 to April 2026 · Association of Commercial Sea Ports (ASOP)
- Statistics by cargo type and by basin, 2025 and first quarter 2026 · Association of Commercial Sea Ports (ASOP)
- Full-year 2025 port throughput by port · Kommersant, 30 January 2026
- First-quarter 2026 throughput by Baltic terminal · Kommersant St Petersburg, 14 April 2026
- PortWatch, daily port activity and tanker exports · International Monetary Fund
← Back to all insights